Recruiting Participants for AHRQ Study on Healthcare-Associated Infection Payment Policy

Does your hospital want to understand the impact of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services payment policies on healthcare-associated infection? AHRQ is funding a study led by Harvard researchers to find out — and your help is needed. With 5–10 minutes of effort, your hospital can join others in providing evidence to policymakers. Find out more by attending an informational webinar on April 29 from noon to 1 p.m. ET. Click here to get more details and reserve your spot.

Our Goal

Our overall goal is to assess the serial impact of payment policies implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on health outcomes, as measured by billing rates and prospective surveillance rates. Our main sources of data include infections reported National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) by participating hospitals, State Inpatient Databases (SID) and American Hospital Association databases.

The PAICAP Project’s new specific aims

Aim 1: Evaluate the impact of the CMS Health Care-Acquired Conditions
(HCAC) policy on healthcare-associated infections (HAI) among Medicare,
Medicaid and privately insured patients

Aim 2: Evaluate the impact of the CMS Value-Based Purchasing program
on HAI rates reported to NHSN

Aim 3: Explore reasons for differences in risk-adjusted rankings for
HAIs using billing vs. NHSN data using anonymized data

Aim 4: Examine the impact of financial penalties on HAI rates for hospitals
that care for a high proportion of poor or minority patients

This study will allow us to understand the continued impact of CMS policies on hospitals and patients, so that we can help future decision-making by policymakers.

Webinars

Please join us for a free webinar to learn more about the PAICAP project on the following dates:

Wednesday, April 6, 2016: 3:00-4:00 pm EST
Friday, April 29, 2016: 12:00-1:00 pm EST
Monday, May 23, 2016: 1:00-2:00 pm EST

Please RSVP to Paicap@harvardpilgrim.org with your name, email, and the date you would like to attend, We will send you all the details needed to join the webinar.